Recently, attention has been directed toward preventing ready actuation of lighters by persons normally unable to appreciate the potential danger of flame. Such danger includes the potential to burn the user directly, to burn the areas surrounding the user, or to burn items in proximity to the user. Persons normally contemplated in these efforts are young children in the age category of under about five years of age.
A conventional roll and press lighter includes a body containing a fuel reservoir filled with a liquified and pressurized hydrocarbon fuel, a valve actuator lever, a striker wheel, a flint in frictional contact with the striker wheel, and a fuel flow control valve in fluid communication with the fuel reservoir. After the striker wheel is rotated against the flint by digital manipulation to produce sparks, the valve actuator lever is depressed allowing gaseous hydrocarbon fuel to flow out of the reservoir through the flow control valve. The sparks emitted by manipulation of the spark wheel ignite the released fuel which produces a flame. Such conventional lighters are known in the art and are commercially available.
It is desirable to increase the difficulty involved in using the conventional lighter in order to limit the ability of young children under about five years of age to operate such lighters. For this reason, there are many proposed "child-resistant" lighters offered in the patent literature and on the commercial market. Examples of such patents include U.S. Pat. No. 5,125,829; U.S. Pat. No. 5,002,482; U.S. Pat. No. 5,165,886; U.S. Pat. No. 5,090,893; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,334,011. Each of these disclosed devices describes a child-resistant feature which somehow acts to block movement of the gas fuel release mechanism to prevent operation of the lighter.
Other proposed "child-resistant" lighters are directed toward dexterity measures which make it more difficult for young children to create a spark by making operation of the lighter more difficult. An example of this type of lighter may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,717,335 to Loveless.
Although many of the currently available designs provide a degree of "child-resistance", there is a continuing search in the art for designs which are more user-friendly for the intended adult to operate, while retaining their "child-resistant" qualities.